Wide-eyed, looking like you're under a curse
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Willas Tyrell is thirty-seven years old when he meets his sister's best friend for the first time. He's got as much grey as brown in his hair, can't walk without crutches, and he has a nine year old daughter who takes up every minute of time he doesn't spend chasing down priceless artworks and antiques across the city and beyond. For jadeddiva.
1. Do the walk of shame in your best dress

Willas Tyrell is thirty-seven years old when he meets his sister's best friend for the first time. He's got as much grey as brown in his hair, can't walk without crutches, and he has a nine year old daughter who takes up every minute of time he doesn't spend chasing down priceless artworks and antiques across the city and beyond.

He meets Sansa Stark at a fundraiser for Aster's school, a gala night at the National Museum of Modern Art, and she's trying her best to encourage people into the side room that the museum set up for a display of art by the kids - almost all of it is by the seniors, but Willas knows for a fact that there's a piece in there by Aster. He doesn't know what, because Azzie refused to tell him and made him swear not to find out through her teachers. She has a flair for the artistic from both sides, so he's been looking forward to seeing whatever she produced for weeks, and while he does love the museum and has been looking forward to their new display of Post-Impressionist portraiture, he's been looking forward to seeing Azzie's work more.

The stuff the kids have made is… It's different. Good different, but definitely not something that your standard rich kid artist is going to produce.

Then again, these aren't your standard rich kid artists.

There's a huge canvas triptych on the far wall, for example, painted with what look like frequency lines - they all start in jagged neons on the left, seem to jam and clash all over the middle canvas, and smooth into pastel curves on the right. It's by a Year Twelve, a girl Willas thinks he might know, or at least whose father he thinks he might know. He thinks it'd look wonderful in the gallery at the Water Gardens, and snaps a picture of the tag so he'll know who to ask about buying it later.

He looks around some more, wondering if the kids were told to use visual metaphors for sound as a theme or if they all just happened upon it, and wondering if this is something he and Azzie should sit down and talk about - it might be just him, but most of the pieces seem kind of _sad_ in an indefinable way - when he comes across Azzie's work, and the woman looking at it.

Azzie's piece is... It's a mobile, roughly the same proportions as the one that used to hang over her cot in the house in Oldtown, the one she used to insist they bring with them whenever they travelled, up until she was seven or eight. She used to set it up hanging from her windows when they were in Braavos or Pentos or even just in Dorne, with Ty. It had all these sweet little candy-coloured animals hanging from a pale cream frame, little lilac elephants and rose-pink flamingos and dove grey-and-silver zebras.

This is something else altogether, though. There are more things on it, for one thing, and it's not limited to just candies, and the frame is made of curlicued silver - something about that looks familiar enough that Willas intends on having a word with Azzie's beloved Aunty Sarella when next he can find her - decorated with tiny stick-on sequins in Azzie's favourite shade of blue.

It takes him a second, but he can figure out what each of the hangings are. There's a shimmering silver-blue pool hanging by a tiny, greenish-silver pipe cleaner statuette of a man, and that must be Braavos. There's a bundle of golden roses made of gauze and twisted satin thread that must be Highgarden, and a dainty golden-barked tree that has to be Goldengrove, and a perfect plaster replica of the Hightower, no bigger than Willas' ring finger, that makes the whole thing tip to one side, and...

It's Aster's homes, all of them, and he's so completely overwhelmed that he thinks it best that he not try to talk to the pretty red-haired woman who's urging as many people as she can through the door just over to his right.

By the time she makes her way over to him, her hands folded neatly in front of her, he's managed to calm himself down. He spies the staff badge hanging on the lanyard around her neck with some surprise - she doesn't look old enough to be a teacher in Aster's school, which seems to favour sensible, midde-aged parents with deaf kids, who have experience in helping the kids through the more uniform frustrations that come of their disability. This woman can't be more than twenty-five, and doesn't have the prerequisite bedraggled air of a parent of a small kid.

No rings, either, and he feels kind of silly for even looking, but hey, he's single (terminally so) and she's _very _good looking, and works at Aster's school, which is a good sign - the vetting potential employees have to undergo is terrifying, and Willas has worked for the National Gallery, who are notorious for their background checks because of all the cons who've tried to get into the vaults over the years, so he knows a thing or two about scary vetting.

"It's a lovely piece, isn't it?" she says cheerfully, gesturing to Azzie's mobile. "Aster is one of our Year Threes - I think she has real potential, don't you?"

Willas, for once, is thankful that Azzie looks more like Ty than she does like him, because apparently, this pretty woman doesn't know who he is, and that's maybe the funniest thing he's seen all year. He's a generous benefactor to the school, and he's one of the public faces of the Highgarden Foundation, when he's in the country. It's unusual for someone in the school _not _to recognise him, especially someone he overheard talking about the kids' art as if she knows something about modern art - he's kind of a big name on the art scene, after all. People who know art know the big dealers, and Willas is maybe the biggest in the city.

"Sansa Stark," she says, not offering him a hand, which is nice - it avoids the awkward few seconds of fumbling with his crutches - and instead dipping her head, a gesture he can return without any difficulty. "I teach the Year Ones - are you a parent?"

"Aster's parent," he admits, unable to keep from laughing when she claps her hands over her face in embarrassment. "No, no, don't feel bad - she looks a lot more like her mother than she does like me, and it can be hard to pick out a resemblance between a pretty nine year old girl and a nearly forty year old man with glasses and a beard at the best of times. It's caused us trouble with customs more than once. Willas Tyrell," he adds, almost having forgotten to give his name. "Azzie wouldn't let me know what she was making for the show, and she made me swear on pain of losing my cookie privileges to not ask my grandmother to find out."

"She's a lovely girl," Sansa Stark says, her cheeks still bright red. "I don't - Aster uses her mother's name at school?"

Willas shrugs - it hadn't even occurred to him for her to use his name when she enrolled, even if Tyrell was her last name on her birth certificate. They were too close to Highgarden here, and at the time, there'd been a contract out on him for liberating that cache of Ghiscari silver in Lys, and a contract out on Dad for something to do with the Greyjoys, and it just hadn't been _safe _to enrol her as Aster Martell-Tyrell. He and Ty had agreed to drop the Tyrell, and since Ty had been living in Oldtown at the time, sharing the Martells' enormous apartment on Harbour Row with Sarella, it hadn't been difficult to hide the truth until things cooled down.

"She always has," he says. "Things were complicated when she enrolled, so her mother and I thought it best not to advertise her being mine."

Sansa Stark looks at him with a crooked eyebrow and a speculative gleam in her bright blue eyes, and he feels his cheeks warm. The last woman to make him blush was Ty, way back in the day, and knowing that only makes him blush harder.

He has never, ever been so grateful to be interrupted by his grandmother.

Rhea Florent-Hightower is a force of nature, nearly seventy-three years old and still ruling the board of directors of the Lorea Hightower Academy with a lace-gloved iron fist. Willas adores and fears his grandmother in equal measure, because she also rules his _grandfather_ with that iron fist, and that alone is cause to fear her.

"Hello, Nana," he says, holding out his cheek for her to kiss - or slap, both have happened in the past - and smiling. "Lovely party."

"You've been here ten minutes, gone into one room, and spent no money at all," she chides sternly. "I thoroughly disapprove - unless Miss Stark has been keeping you occupied?"

Nana has always been under the impression that Willas' aversion to committed relationships of any sort but familial is a failing that can be corrected with forceful nagging. Lots of it. Nana's speciality is forceful but affectionate nagging, and she likes to dole it out generously. Especially to Willas, and to Pop. She says they're too alike for their own good, and that they need a strong woman to herd them. She says she's Pop's strong woman, and that one of her many hobbies is finding Willas' strong woman.

She's a character, is Willas' nana.

"Miss Stark and I were just introducing ourselves," he warns her. "She knows Azzie."

"And you know Aster loathes you using that nickname outside the house," Nana points out, poking him in the chest. "Miss Stark has been enormously helpful with the preparations for tonight's gala - doesn't she look marvellous, Willas? You should always tell a lady when she looks marvellous, you terrible excuse for a gentleman."

When Willas looks away from Nana, Miss Stark looks both dazed - a natural reaction to Nana's presence - and very lovely, in midnight blue satin threaded with silver. He hadn't noticed much beyond the lanyard around her neck and her striking hair, but yes, it's true, she does look marvellous.

"You look very nice, Miss Stark," he says, because anything else would only be even _more_ embarrassing than Nana flirting on his behalf. "What do you want me to spend money on, Nana? I was intending on enquiring about the triptych over there-"

"I need you to come to the auction," Nana says. "And you as well, Sansa - we need to break the half million mark _minimum_ tonight, Willas, and I know you're always on the lookout for something new for your collection."

"Nana, you _know_ I'm not in the market for a half-million worth of art at the moment," he says patiently. "I spent nine million just last week in Pentos-"

"Tough titties," Nana says brusquely. "I need you to drop that money, and so help me Willas Hightower-Tyrell, I will break your bad leg all over again if you do not drop that money."

He blinks at her, used to the threat but not used to her levelling it at him in front of anyone other than Pop or maybe Mum.

"Seems I'm going to be dropping half a million on art, then," he says to Miss Stark, who's laughing behind her hand.

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, Miss Sansa Tully-Stark," Nana says, pointing a shrewd finger at Miss Stark's tiny clutch purse. "I know all about your inheritances - I stood witness to your mother's mother's will, after all."

Willas shrugs helplessly to Miss Stark, and when Nana marches out towards the main hall, they follow along like ducklings.

He wonders if she'll _really_ bully him into spending half a million dollars on art he _knows_ will be next to impossible to shift - because like _hell _he wants anything that Nana likes in his private collection, her taste is _appalling_ \- or if she'll calm down once he drops maybe ten or twenty thou.

* * *

Nana did not calm down once he spent ten or twenty thou.

Mercifully, she also bullied Miss Stark into spending a quarter of a million of her uncle's money, because Nana somehow knew that Miss Stark is one of four people authorised to buy for the Tullys' collection.

"I cannot _believe_ that you're Fat-Head Ed's niece," he says, pouring more whiskey into her glass and motioning for the bartender to bring more ginger ale. They're halfway into a litre bottle of black label, and neither of them are prepared to slow down just yet - dropping three-quarters of a million pounds on art neither of them particularly liked has given them both a deep, possibly endless thirst for anything that can make them forget that they spent three-quarters of a million pounds on art neither of them particularly liked.

And now, Sansa is one of _those_ Tullys, and one of _those _Starks, just like he's one of _those _Hightowers and Tyrells. It's one of those nights, it really is. The last time he had a night this magnificently bizarre, well, it was the first time he'd seen Ty since they left Summerhall, and hadn't _that _been the start of something wild.

"I always forget that Ed's got sisters," he says, squeezing half a lime over Sansa's glass. "You do look terribly like him, now I see you under more normal lighting."

"I always forget Margie has _three _older brothers," she counters. "I've never met you even once, and Margie and I have been friends since my first day at college. How come I've never met you?"

She's drunk, and so is he, so he doesn't feel bad for noticing that she's painfully beautiful now that she isn't nervously herding parents and benefactors in to look at the kids' art. He isn't sure he'd be quite so charmed if she didn't occasionally forget to speak aloud and revert to signing, something he apparently does himself - he never speaks aloud when he's at home, because there's no point when it's just him and Az, and that extends to most of the family, and most of his friends, too, because the few friends he has are as good as family and learned sign language as soon as it became apparent Azzie wasn't just slow to speak.

They end up signing to one another, because she can't stop giggling at something and that's making him giggle, too, and he almost forgets to speak aloud when the time comes to find a cab.

* * *

Azzie is sitting beside him on his bed when he wakes up the next morning, holding out a glass of water - he wonders if her babysitter is still downstairs, and feels awful, because he'd promised Olwyn he'd be back by one, but he remembers the Citadel bells chiming four as he hobbled up the steps to the front door.

_"What's up?"_ he asks Azzie, who pulls a face and crosses her arms, which he takes as a sign to sit up and drink his water like a good little daddy. That done, he tries again. _"Have I been bad?"_

_"Why is Miss Stark from school asleep in the spare room?" _she asks, and he tries his best to remember why Sansa Stark might be asleep in their spare room and finds quite a bit of last night missing.

He still remembers all that money Nana made him spend. Seems the vodka didn't do its job.

_"Nana happened,"_ he says, and Azzie's mouth twists - she, like he, adores Nana, but she, like he, is mortally afraid of the woman. She, like he, has some small survival instinct, and to be afraid of Nana goes a long way towards ensuring survival in the extended Hightower clan.

_"Is Miss Stark okay? She's really nice, Daddy."_

"_I'll go check on her as soon as I'm dressed, okay?" _he promises her. "_Maybe check your aunt Margie's room, see if she has anything that might fit Miss Stark - I don't think her dress from last night will do her this morning."_

Margie keeps a room here in case she ever needs somewhere to crash near to home without Mum and Dad breathing down her neck - which they do, and it's annoying, no matter how affectionately they mean it - and there should be some clothes of hers in there. He thinks it's probably better that he lets Azzie pick, because while he has an impeccable eye for classical art and for interior design, fashion completely escapes him. Azzie, according to Marg, has _an eye._

_"Miss Stark's dress was really pretty," _Azzie informs him. _"I hung it up for her."_

Willas' mouth goes dry at the idea of Sansa Stark not wearing her dress in his house, because he remembers thinking about how damned pretty she is more than he should have last night, and he waves Azzie on, telling her to find something long because Miss Stark is taller than Auntie Margie, and as soon as Azzie is out the door he thinks very hard about cold showers. And then he takes one, just to be on the safe side.

By the time he gets out of the shower and does his exercises, Azzie is flicking the light switch outside his room - their version of knocking on the door - and, when he lets her in, she tells him that Miss Stark said thank you for the change of clothes and the bed, and that she'll make sure they're clean before she returns them.

Willas is used to getting the brush off - the crutches put off plenty of women, and if the crutches don't do the job, Azzie weeds out the unworthy - so he's not exactly surprised. Azzie looks a little confused, which he supposes is at least partially because she, unlike him, doesn't understand the idea of a one-night stand.

Does it count as a one-night stand if they spent it on different floors? He doesn't think so, but who knows. Dating etiquette has probably changed a lot since the last time he worried about the terminology.

"_Come here," _he says, patting the bed beside him and tugging Azzie into his lap as soon as she's close enough. She's getting too big for this, really, all long, knobbly legs and arms, more his build than Ty's, but she curls up small and tucks herself in close, making sure to bring the notepad and pen he keeps on the nightstand with her.

_I don't like it when you have ladies over at night,_ she writes, because they're too close together to sign. _How come you don't have a person like Mummy has Allyria?_

Tyene and Allyria have been together as long as Azzie remembers, and it's the one thing he most regrets about his lifestyle - even when Ty is travelling, Lyria's always there at Starfall to look after Az, but when Willas has to travel for work, well, Az either has to face an two hour commute each way to school from Starfall, the craziness of staying at the Hightower with Nana and Pop, or an hour each way to school from Highgarden. He's considered hiring a live-in nanny, but the idea of a stranger raising his daughter is repulsive, and he's not sure he'd trust anyone outside the family anyways - Renly and Allyria, sure, but they don't even count anymore, not since Lyria married Tyene and Renly married Loras. They _are_ family now.

Wow. He really needs to get some friends. Like, really really needs to get some friends.

_I haven't found anyone I love the way Mummy loves Allyria_ he writes back. _Maybe someday, but not yet._

He doesn't know if that's true - he can't imagine there ever being someone else in his life, not romantically. He's happy with just Az and work and the family, he _is..._ Except sometimes, he remembers what it was like when him and Ty were together, eating breakfast before class and falling asleep together reading and yes, okay, the sex was great, too, but more than that he misses her just _being _there. He misses coming in in the evenings and having someone there to talk to and cook with, because no matter how much he loves Az, she's _nine._ And his daughter. And it's different.

Okay, maybe he wouldn't mind finding someone romantically. But Az doesn't need to know that her dad is a lonely old fart, not when he's already got the old fart bit down pat.

_Would you like me to have someone like Mummy has Allyria?_ he asks, disgusted with himself for having never thought about it - most of her friends have very sensible, normal, nuclear families, and he wonders if Azzie has ever felt strange for her home situation being, well, strange.

_You look sad sometimes _she tells him, and his heart breaks because he _never _wants her to know anything but happiness. _Nana said you got on well with Miss Stark at the gala last night._

Surely the old witch didn't.

_Did Nana text you about the gala?_

_She always does. She sends me pictures of the gowns._

* * *

Willas and Aster don't think much about Sansa Stark after that, except when Aster tells him about the help Miss Stark gives them during art classes, or when Nana brings her up - or Margaery, who apparently shared a bloody room with the girl- the woman in UCKL, back in the day.

Life goes on, though, as it always has. Azzie has to spend three nights in Highgarden when Willas gets called to Qohor to verify a supposed second century tapestry that turns out to be poorly forged, and an excuse to get him to the city in the hope he'd splash some of his cash.

He buys a very pretty set of vintage-style ebony luggage cases that Azzie'll love, and a strange looking amber pendant as a Solstice gift for Marg, both new and both a huge disappointment to his hosts, but other than that, he mostly just tries to get home as quickly as he can. He really does hate spending time away from Az, and he's been working late all the damn time the past few weeks, so he's barely seen her except on Sunday nights, when she gets home from her weekends with Ty. It's hurting them both, he can tell from the way she clings to him for a lot longer than she usually would when she gives him his goodbye hug when he drops her off to school on his way to work.

That's why he nearly passes out when he gets a call asking him to come into the school, because Az has been fighting. He knows she hasn't been as happy as usual these past weeks, but _fighting?_ It's just not in her nature.

Ty is there before him, because he was at a meeting in the Breaker, and traffic was hell, and she tells him that she hasn't been allowed to see Az.

"They said she _bit_ some kid, Will!" she shouts, grabbing him by the lapels and giving him a good shake. "You've had your head in the clouds ever since that last trip to Pentos, but by the gods, if this is your fault I _will _sue for custody."

He has no reply to that - he and Ty have never had a formal custody agreement drawn up, because it just makes _sense_ for Az to live with Willas during the week. He lives on Citadel Square, her school is just ten minutes away, fifteen in heavy traffic, he has the big house where she has plenty of room to play, he... No. Ty wouldn't do that. She wouldn't take Az away from him.

Would she? Has he really been that bad? Should he have seen this coming?

"Mr Tyrell, Ms Martell," someone - the principal, Doctor Merryweather, was standing in the door of her office and looked just a little disapproving. Willas stumbled when Ty released him, but he was right behind her when she stormed through Dr. Merryweather's door. "Glad both of you could come."

Az is sitting on a small chair in the corner of the room, with big, red eyes, and tear-tracks on her cheeks. He motions her over as soon as he sits down, and when she won't come, he tosses her his hankie - she smiles just a little when she catches it, and gives him a thumbs up when he tips his head in askance.

"Your daughter bit another child today," Dr. Merryweather says, and Willas begins signing the conversation to Azzie from pure habit - and he keeps doing it, even when Dr. Merryweather glares disapprovingly at his hands. Maybe _because_ Dr. Merryweather is glaring disapprovingly at his hands. He hates when people purposely leave Azzie out, just because she's deaf.

"She bit another child," Dr. Merryweather says, folding her hands on her desk and looking at him over her glasses with obvious disdain. "And she did this because the other child _supposedly_ passed some comment or other about an affair that you, Mr. Tyrell, are having with a member of our staff."

Willas looks to Azzie, who shrugs helplessly, and then to Dr. Merryweather.

"Who in the world am I supposedly having an affair with?" he asks, sincerely baffled by this all. "I- Surely not Sansa Stark?"

"So there is something between yourself and Miss Stark, then?"

"I- no, no there is not! She and I spoke a little the night of the gala in the Museum of Modern Art, and yes, we commiserated over drinks after my grandmother forced us to spend three quarters of a million pounds on ugly, _ugly_ art, but she and I are not having an _affair!"_

"Well, Aster still felt the need to defend both Miss Stark's honour and yours, Mr. Tyrell, and so she must be punished. The standard punishment for an assault on another student of this magnitude-"

"Children bite one another all of the time!" Tyene says dismissively. "I have sisters not much older than Aster who used do it all the time-"

"Did they ever bite one another so badly they needed stitches, Ms. Martell?"

Willas looks to Tyene, who seems just as horrified as he is, then looks to Aster, who seems suitably ashamed.

"I assume a suspension is involved?"

* * *

"You've been sleeping with one of her teachers?" Ty demands, as soon as they've made sure Az understands that she's not allowed to leave her room except to use the loo and left her up there. "And Aster _knows?"_

"Sansa and I went for drinks _once_," Willas says, "and only because Nana did a thing - we got enormously drunk, she stayed in the guest room, Az woke me up asking why Sansa was in the house, she found clothes for Sansa in Marg's room, Sansa was gone by the time I got out of the shower. She sent Margie's clothes back freshly laundered by courier the following week. It was _nothing, _Ty, I don't even have her number."

"Then why is Az _biting people_ over this?!"

"Nana," he guesses. "She was doing everything in her power to push me and Sansa together the night of the gala, and she apparently keeps Az in the loop of her schemes - she texted Az to tell her Sansa was here, she's probably doing her best to make Az encourage me to find a wife, and she's probably told Az that Sansa's the _perfect_ wife."

Tyene slams a mug of coffee down on the table in front of him, and he watches the contents slop over the sides, dripping down her fingers.

"Az thinks I'm lonely," he says quietly. "She... She worries about me almost as much as Nana and Mum do. I don't know what to do to stop that, Ty. There's nothing I can say-"

"You find something," Tyene says. "You stop Aster from thinking about your love life. You tell your bitch of a grandmother to stop interfering with my daughter. You keep your drama and neuroses away from my daughter."

"She's my daughter too, Ty."

"And you've spent every minute since you got back from Lorath either running around the city or out of the damn country," Ty points out. "You're barely even a parent to her anymore-"

"How _dare_ you! Aster is _everything_ to me, and you know it!"

The idea that he's been neglecting Aster is something that's been weighing on him for weeks now, but gods, he was sure it was just his usual paranoia - if Ty thinks he's neglecting Az, well, it's a kick in the teeth. Does Az feel neglected? Has she said something to Ty or to Lyria?

"You need to sort your life out, Will," Ty says, wiping her hands on the teatowel. "I'm not going to see Aster grow up in circumstances as... Confused as I did. You protect her from your mess, or I'll take her out of here. It's your decision, Will."

* * *

The thought of losing Azzie is all it takes for Willas to admit that yes, he might have been a little distant for the past while, but that is totally understandable given that he was nearly shot by a Greyjoy in Lorath last summer, a case of mistaken identity because Willas really _does_ look like his father, and Dad has never quite shaken the price the Greyjoys put on his head, back before Az started school.

So he thinks it's totally fair that he's been a bit shaky. And yes, maybe he has been a little less present with Az, but if the Greyjoys are shooting at him just because he looks like Dad, then Az is in danger every time they go out together in public, isn't she? And he won't risk her-

"You could solve this very easily," Randa says, tapping her pen against the edge of her notebook. "All you do is increase your home security, armour your car, and hire a bodyguard for Aster. She won't be the only kid at the Academy with a suit tailing her, Will, and you know it."

It's probably not a good idea to have the only woman he's gone out with for more than six weeks (aside from Ty, of course) as his therapist, but Willas has never been very sensible about these things, and he finds it hard enough to speak openly about his feelings without it being to a stranger. Randa knows him and Azzie better than anyone else outside the family, though, and since everything in Willas' life comes back to Az, he's more than willing to put up with Randa seeing right through him if it means she keeps him steady enough to be a good father to Aster.

"And maybe put your foot down with Nana," Randa adds. "She needs to take her nose out of your affairs, Will, and you know it - you're just far too fond of the easy life to risk causing a stir in the family, and you know it."

* * *

Six months later, every window in the house has been reglazed with bulletproof, shatterproof glass, the car now weighs an extra half a tonne thanks to the armour plating in the body and bulletproof glass in the windows, and Az has both a bodyguard who stands outside her classroom at school and a panic button built into her bright pink watch.

And Willas' head is a lot clearer, and Nana isn't talking to him, because he told her to piss off.

It's made a difference, though, it has, he can see it already - he's getting home earlier because he's getting more work done during the day, and he's finally stopped doing all the cross-city jobs himself. He's even started delegating the foreign trips, something he's _never _done before, not in the six years since he started working for himself, and that means getting to spend more time with Azzie.

It also means relaxing so much that now, not even a year after his near-miss, he doesn't see it coming when two massive men in masks try to bundle him into the back of a van, breaking one of his crutches and cracking his bad kneecap in the sliding van door.

He's in so much pain he can hardly breathe, not until one of them jams a syringe into his thigh and injects him with some sort of local anaesthetic - his whole leg goes completely numb, and he's thankful for it, because otherwise he might have lost his mind.

"You think your daddy'll pay up?" one of them asks, pulling his head back by his hair - he can't really make out their faces, because his glasses have been crushed on the van floor, but this one has dark hair, and the other has an eyepatch, he thinks. "He did us wrong a long time ago, and we're going to get him back for it."

Greyjoys then, and he wonders how bad this will get. He's heard the stories about what they did to the creature that took the youngest of them the year before last, and while Dad's crimes against them - levying taxes on behalf of the city council, and actually insisting that they be paid, rather than just pretending the Greyjoys weren't skipping out on the port duties. Or something like that. There had been taxes involved, Willas knew, but he'd been somewhat preoccupied with Azzie starting school and all the adjustments needed to the house to make it fit for them both to live in full time at the time, and he'd missed the specifics of it all.

He probably should have asked about it after they nearly shot him in the head. Oh well.

"And don't worry about that pretty little daughter of yours," one of them says, pressing a chloroformed rag over Willas' mouth and nose (wow, old school). "We've got some nice boys ready to pick her up from school, since you won't make it."

He tries to curse them, but his head is already _so heavy, _and he can't do much more than hope Az's bodyguard is worth the money Willas pays him every month.


	2. They make mistakes and live for hem

The Hightowers don't often visit the school - certainly the Old Man, the infamous Leyton, never does - so this must be a particularly special occasion, especially given that they're accompanied by a security team with the subtle green-embroidered roses on the breast (and arse) pockets of their suits. Sansa knows those roses, know that they come from Highgarden, and supposes that there must be something big going on if Mace has supplied his father-in-law with a security detail, especially given that Sansa knows that the two men absolutely loathe one another, and neither would be particularly sorry to see the other dead, except for the hurt it would cause their mutual family.

Old Leyton is a tall, handsome man, his silver-white hair striking against his sun-dark skin, and Sansa recognises the quiet, unassuming charm he uses on Elayne, the receptionist, from his eldest grandson, even if she only had the pleasure of Willas Tyrell's company for a single evening. She thinks that it's whatever small measure of his grandfather that there is in Willas that prevented her from recognising him straight away, because he's very much like his father, and she reminds herself to tell Margaery so - Marg had laughed herself sick after finding out about Sansa spending the night in her brother's guest room, and still brings it up, even almost a year later.

Doctor Hightower walks with the quiet assurance that comes from money and influence (Sansa's grandfathers have the same walk, even Granddad, sick from the chemo as he is, so it's something she recognises easily), and Sansa watches him curiously as he leans on a cane that she thinks is more for the look of the thing than for any practical purpose. She's gotten good at reading body language since she started training as a special needs teacher, because many of her students can't articulate their needs and desires with words, and often not just because of physical disabilities, but anyone could see the tension under Doctor Hightower's gorgeously cut dark grey suit, or the anxiety in the way he fiddles at the knot of his silver-and-red tie.

Doctor Merryweather arrives down the stairs, regal and totally in control of whatever might be thrown her way, and frowns only a little when Doctor Hightower refuses her invitation to join her in her office. Merryweather prefers to handle everything in her office, because it's so completely her terrain, and she looks put out when the Old Man just ticks his cane against the hardwood floor and looks at her over his glasses.

"What's going on?" Devan whispers, leaning over the bannister behind Sansa. "Is that who I think it is?"

Devan's one of the few new friends Sansa has made in years, a little younger than her and twice as outgoing, but also very serious and sensible and _solid. _He grew up with Arya's girlfriend, Shireen, and Sansa knows she can trust him because Arya vetted him very thoroughly after Sansa danced with him at Shireen's twenty-first.

"Looks serious," she whispers back. "Can you ever remember seeing a Hightower in the school, aside from the Professor?"

Everyone who works in the school is a little bit afraid of Rhea Hightower, who is a complete force of nature and also scarily beautiful, but Sansa kind of likes her. She reminds her of Nana Lya, who died when Sansa was nine.

"Go ask," Devan says. "You're friends with that Margaery girl, aren't you? She's his granddaughter - use that as your in."

Sansa is about to tell him where he can shove his _in_ when Doctor Merryweather calls her from across the foyer, one immaculate brow arched in impatience.

"Miss Stark," she says, "this is Doctor Leyton Hightower, chairman of the board of trustees."

"A pleasure, Doctor Hightower," Sansa says, ignoring that Merryweather failed to introduce her. "Sansa Stark - I teach the year three Hearing Impaired class."

"And somehow tolerate our Margaery," Doctor Hightower says, all smiles and worry lines around his bright eyes. "I've heard a great deal, Miss Stark - my wife has high hopes."

Merryweather, clearly unhappy with this turn of events - she likes to monopolise the Hightowers when they do deign to drop by - turns to Sansa, frowning more sternly than Sansa has ever seen.

"Doctor Hightower is here to remove his great-granddaughter," she says, looking five seconds away from an eye-roll. "Since you are familiar to her both in and out of school, and since you are reportedly friends with her security detail, he would like you to alert Aster and Mr. Umber, and to escort them off the property."

"Sir-"

Doctor Hightower stops her with a raised hand before turning to Merryweather, who stands there stubbornly until he verbally dismisses her. Sansa can't really blame her - the Academy runs as well as it does only thanks to Merryweather being so damn good at her job - but is glad to see her retreat all the same.

"My granddaughter doesn't have many friends," Doctor Hightower says. "And my wife doesn't like many people - nor do I, for that matter. But we both like your grandfathers, and we both liked your grandmothers a great deal, and I have nothing but respect for your parents. You're probably my granddaughter's closest friend, aside from that strange girl she's been seeing these past few months, and Aster, who has liked absolutely none of the women her father has ever brought back to their house, likes _you, _Miss Stark. I would bring Aster myself, but since we cannot be sure who the target is at present, it's best that the family remains scattered until we can reach safety-"

"But sir, _why _do you need me to remove Aster from the school? I don't understand."

Leyton Hightower's smile fades then, and he removes his glasses to rub at one of his eyes with the heel of his hand. She knows that look - she's seen it on Uncle Bryn's face twice a day whenever she goes to visit Granddad - and braces herself for the worst.

"My grandson," he says, "was taken off the street four hours ago, Miss Stark, and we need to get his daughter to safety as quickly and as quietly as is humanly possible. So please, I beg you, for Margaery's sake if for nothing else, do this thing for my family. _Please."_

* * *

Aster Martell-Tyrell is a strikingly pretty little girl, tall for her age, with her mother's golden-fair hair and her father's golden-tan skin and eyes the same honey-gold as Margaery's. She smiles brightly when Sansa approaches her on the yard, and follows her inside cheerfully enough, her bright pink combat boots clunking along on the polished floors.

_"Your great-grandfather has given me permission to bring you to Highgarden, Az," _Sansa tells her, using the nickname because while they are still at school, this is the furthest thing from a normal day imaginable, so she thinks a little informality won't go amiss. She got to know Aster better over the summer, because she spent a lot of time with Marg and Loras and Renly, and so did Aster, so she's going to play up on that to keep Aster calm. _"You need to grab anything before we leave?"_

Aster's face falls a little - she's a Martell and a Tyrell, so she must know that there aren't many _good _reasons for her to be pulled out of school unexpectedly - but she just leads the way to her classroom, where she gathers up her schoolbag (as pink as her boots) and her coat, and then she all but clicks her heels together as she waits expectantly for Sansa to lead the way forward.

Sansa turns to Smalljon.

Smalljon Umber has been Sansa's friend for as long as she can remember - she vouched for him, when he needed clearance to work in the school as part of Aster's security detail - which is why she's glad he's on duty today. This is going to be hard enough as it is, and she doesn't need to be fighting with Aster's bodyguard on top of everything else. Gods, who's going to take her class after lunch? She didn't even think to ask!

"Aster has to get to Highgarden without being detected, as soon as possible," Sansa says, signing along for Aster's benefit. "How do we get her there safely?"

Smalljon scratches his chin thoughtfully, looks at Aster, then smiles.

"Simple," he says. "We make her look completely different."

With whiteboard marker ink turning her fair hair black (pity, Sansa thinks, that there's nothing much she can do to disguise the undercut), shoes and coat taken from the Lost and Found box in reception, and glasses taken from the year five dress up box, Aster doesn't look herself - she looks older, if nothing else, which should throw off anyone who might be watching the school with a mind to taking her off the street when the final bell goes. That's all they need, really, but Sansa agrees when Smalljon suggest tugging a bobble hat down over Aster's admittedly patchy new hairdo all the same, explaining the reasons to Aster before she does anything.

_"Is Daddy in trouble?" _Aster asks in return, and Sansa doesn't know how to lie to her - so she doesn't.

_"I don't know," _she says, _"but Doctor Hightower thinks so, and I think we should trust him."_

Aster nods, says _"Pop knows lots of things," _and then goes along with whatever Sansa and Smalljon suggest from there on.

She's a well-behaved girl - she's old enough that she doesn't really need to, but she holds onto Smalljon's massive hand as they cross the road all the same, and she slumps low in the back seat of Sansa's car without needing to be told, and seems far, far calmer than any other child her age would be. She seems calmer than any child her age _should _be, and Sansa can't help but wonder why that is - have her parents prepared her for this eventuality? The Tyrells have plenty of enemies, after all, thanks to Mace's tenure as mayor and Marg's journalistic work, and even just the company itself, which has absorbed so many smaller competitors that it would be silly to think all those takeovers were amiable. She half-remembers Marg telling her about some trouble Willas got involved with somewhere in Essos, too, so maybe that?

And that's without touching the Martells, who, thanks to Oberyn (Sansa never considered this, but the Viper is _Aster's grandfather) _have more enemies than they can shake a stick at.

Her phone tinkles from the shelf under the radio, and she asks Smalljon to check it for her. He looks jumpy, sitting forward in his seat a little so the gun strapped to his ankle isn't far away from his hand, but he checks her phone all the same, harrumphing when he opens the text for her. It's from Theon - who Sansa always loathed as a creepy perv, when he was just Robb's friend, but who she kind of likes since he and Jeyne got together, after Ramsay - and is nothing at all that she wanted to hear.

_Get Aster Martell-Tyrell out of the school. Break the law if you have to. She is not safe._

"Well, that's fabulous," Smalljon huffs, slipping her phone back into the shelf and pressing his hands to his face. "Greyjoys! Fantastic!"

Sansa shivers at the thought - everyone knows that, since Old Quellon died, Balon has been running operations the old way. Quellon was of her grandfathers' generation, and Sansa has heard enough stories to know that even though he was a crook and a criminal and not a good man, he was a _decent _man, and never left anyone in the state his sons liked to induce.

"Just pray they don't have him down the docks," Sansa says, because she knows from Theon that nobody gets _really _fucked up by the Greyjoys unless they're taken down the docks. "It's going to be fine."

Smalljon snorts, but he doesn't say another word until they pull into the massive carpark at Highgarden.

Highgarden was once the primary residence for the Tyrell family, but about twenty years ago, they converted the bottom three floors and donated those and the gardens to the city, as the National Museum of Natural History. The only things that can't be grown in Highgarden are the blue Northern roses and some varieties of Dornish flowers, so it was the ideal location, really. The Tyrells held onto the top two floors - the fourth is offices, mostly, Mace's private and Doctor Alerie's personal, and the office Marg uses when she gets paranoid about her workspace at the Herald's offices, things like that. Sansa's been there plenty, but she's never been to the fifth floor, which Marg and Loras have only ever described as _safe._

That's where she intends on bringing Aster now, if she can get in. Going on the massive police presence, she's going to assume they've figured out that the threat is to Mace, and Sansa has no idea how she's going to get through the blockade.

"I've got this," Smalljon says, crouching down and pointing over his shoulder. _"Come on, little lady, climb aboard."_

Aster is tall enough that she'd look silly piggy-backing anyone but Smalljon, and Sansa trails along in their wake, feeling completely surplus to requirements. She still isn't sure why Doctor Hightower asked her to come, when Smalljon is perfectly capable of taking care of his charge, so she just steps a little closer and follows him and Aster inside after he flashes his ID and Aster shows off what looks a lot like a signet ring on a chain around her neck.

Maybe _this _is why Doctor Hightower sent for her, she realises, as they walk in the door. Smalljon looks faint when he realises just how many people are here, but for Sansa, who's been to all of Marg's and Loras' birthday parties, as well as Mace and Doctor Alerie's, ever since she was seventeen, well, it's nothing, really.

(With that in mind, it kind of annoys her that she never met Willas until the night of the exhibition, but she has more important things to worry about, so she pushes that thought aside and ignores how flushed she feels.)

The Tyrells are a huge family, and when you add in the Hightowers, well, it's a jungle. She can spy enough curly fair heads to pick out most of the Hightower siblings, and enough dark curly hair to spot the vast array of Tyrell cousins. The museum must have been shut down for this - she can't see anyone who doesn't look at least vaguely familiar, so she coaxes Aster down from Smalljon's back and kneels down in front of her.

_"Do you want to go to your grandparents, or do you want me to find Margie?"_

_"Granddad,"_ Aster signs back before Sansa can even finish, looking panicky and pink in the cheeks - finally reacting as Sansa would have expected. _"I want Granddad."_

Sansa takes her hand when she stands up, then stands on her tip-toes to find Mace - right in the middle of the room, of course, with Doctor Alerie on his arm.

"_Okay," _she tells Aster. _"We're going to use Smalljon to push through all these people so we can get to your granddad."_

And that's exactly what they do - they follow in the path Smalljon carves, and when Sansa guides Aster into the little clearing in the middle of the room, under the blue whale skeleton, well, Mace Tyrell cries like a baby and grabs hold of his granddaughter so tight Sansa thinks poor Aster might crack a rib.

* * *

Willas wakes up for the second time to find a woman sitting in a chair beside him, sewing up the deep, uneven cut on his thigh. He'd been in too much pain to realise it at the time, but the van door had slammed on his leg twice - once on the kneecap, the second time just above it. His knee is really and truly fucked this time, he thinks, so he doesn't much care about it, but he's glad someone in the Greyjoys' operation realises the dangers of blood loss and sepsis.

"You must be Asha," he says, or at least tries to - his tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth and to his teeth, and he's groggy enough that that isn't helping, either, but she smiles, so he forges on. "Charmed, I'm sure."

"I'm sure," she agrees, setting aside her needle and picking up a dressing and a long roll of bandages. "Anything else need stitching?"

He hasn't a clue - he has cracked ribs need taping up, he thinks, and the bastards broke two of his fingers, which now need setting and splinting. He probes a little and discovers a missing tooth, and the grogginess makes him think he might have a head injury of some sort, since he doesn't remember passing out last time, but he doesn't know that there's anything much Miss Asha Greyjoy can do to help with any of that unless she calls an ambulance.

"I wouldn't mind a drink of water," he offers, and she smiles again - a sharp thing, all teeth and bitten back laughter - and rises to fetch a glass from the sink under the high-up window.

"You know why you're here?" she asks, as she helps him sip at the water. "I mean, not just because of you father - do you have seven million pounds worth of Ghiscari silver tucked away in a vault somewhere?"

"So you're the good cop," he realises. "Your uncles were very interested in that silver, too - do they have contacts in Lys? Or did they just read about it in the Herald and think it looked like a good score?"

"Oh, that would be telling," she laughs. "But if you do have it, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to let them know here it is - do that, and as soon as your father wipes away their tax debt and pays your ransom, well, you'll be home free."

"I'm sure," he says, tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the spinning of the room. "How long have I been here?"

"Seven hours," she tells him, coaxing his head back up and making him sip more of the water. "Apparently they wanted to get your little girl to use as leverage against you, but she was gone from her school - that was all Euron, by the way, my old man wouldn't have done that."

"Aster is safe? My daughter is safe?"

"I don't know about that, but she's not here, anyway."

He takes a deep breath that turns to a sob when his ribs move, and barely holds himself back from crying. They promised to hurt Azzie earlier, and to know that she isn't with them, well, it's the best news he's had in weeks.

He's so focused on settling his ribs as best he can to keep them from hurting that he doesn't notice Asha Greyjoy being replaced by her uncle Victarion who, while not so inventively and enthusiastically cruel as her uncle Euron, still manages an artful level of brutality.

* * *

"I told Pop to have you bring Aster out of the school," Margie tells her, linking her arm and guiding her to where someone - probably Doc Alerie - has arranged for bottles of water, bowls of fruit, and platters of what Sansa thinks are flapjacks laid out. "I knew she wouldn't spook with you, and that you'd remember to tell her what was going on."

"And you weren't adverse to the idea of having a friend here, either," Sansa guesses, smiling when Margie just shrugs. "Any news? Your grandfather couldn't tell me much - I got the impression he dind't want to say anything in front of Doctor Merryweather."

"Oh, he hates her, has done ever since she told him and Nana to get bent when they tried to tell her how to run the Academy," Margie says easily, pressing a bottle of water into Sansa's hand and filling a bowl with strawberry and slices of peach - Sansa's favourites, and Margie's, too. "As for news, well, we've had a ransom demand from the Greyjoys. A video of Willas."

"Oh, Marg-"

Margie waves it off, calmer than Sansa thinks she ought to be, and shrugs again.

"He looked alive, which is the main thing," she says briskly. "We can fix just about anything else, so long as he's alive."

Sansa knows how that feels - she remembers how it was when Robb was killed. She hopes Margie never has to experience that side of things, and casts about for something helpful to do.

The thing is, though, that for all the Tyrells often seem completely chaotic - especially when compared with, say, the Lannisters, who do everything with severe, ostentatious perfection - they're generally perfectly organised, and so there _isn't _much that she can do to help. Smalljon is standing behind Aster's chair, over where she's sitting with Mace and Doc Alerie by the slightly creepy taxidermy basking shark, Loras is drinking tea with hs grandmother, Renly's hand heavy on his shoulder, and Garlan, who Sansa doesn't know as well as she does Loras, is kneeling down in front of his pregnant wife, Leonette. They're surrounded by their kids - four of them, all girls - who all have that lush, curly Tyrell hair.

There's no real reason for her to be here, not beyond keeping Margie company, so she thinks she might wait a while, see if there's any more news, and if not, she'd be as well off leaving.

"They broke two of his fingers," Margie says suddenly, her perfect control rigid and sharp. "He can't talk to Azzie without his hands, Sansa. Why would they do that?"

* * *

"Your father is very willing to pay the ransom," Asha says, splinting Willas' fingers very efficiently. "And he has agreed to my father's demands about the port duties - you'll be home with your little girl in no time."

Willas doubts that very much - now that he's thinking straight again, thanks to the localised anaesthetics Asha injected into his hand and leg and torso, he can remember other situations like this. Aerys Targaryen at Duskendale, back when he was a kid. Robb Stark, five or six years ago at the Twins. Both times taken hostage, both times tortured and killed.

Even after the ransom demands were met.

"I want to speak to my father," he says. "Next time you call him, I want to talk to my father - I won't trust that you don't have my daughter unless my father tells me she's with him."

Asha regards him curiously from the sink where she's washing her hands, an odd little smile on her face.

"You're a very devoted father," she says. "We did our research, you know. We have hundreds of photographs of the two of you together. We even bugged your house - which was pointless, since you never _speak._"

"Well, my daughter is _deaf,_" Willas points out. "It would be pointless to talk out loud to her."

"Even if she were here," Asha says cheerfully, "at least she wouldn't be able to hear you screaming."

* * *

"Get him out first," the plainclothes cop says - Sansa knows him, she thinks. He's a Royce, she's fairly sure, not Yohn that was friends with Dad, a cousin of his, the one with the mouthy daughter - as he leans over Mace's desk. Doc Alerie is sitting off to one side, looking a little out of it, as if she's been sedated. Sansa wouldn't be surprised if the doc _had _been sedated, because from what Margie's told her, Willas and his mother are like two peas in a pod, so doubtless, she's going out of her mind.

Sansa's kind of impressed with how Mace is handling himself, really - she always expected that he'd be the one to go to pieces, if anything went wrong Chez Tyrell, but no, he's completely in control. He holds onto Aster a little too tight, and gets a bit flustered if Garlan, Loras, and Margie aren't within sight, but overall he's been pretty relaxed.

Sansa's a bit on edge herself - even if there wasn't tension so thick in the air she can taste it, this is all a little bit too reminiscent of how things were up at home when they were waiting on news of Robb. She wants to believe that the Tyrells will get a happier ending, but she can't, not really, not when all she can see is Mum clawing at her face when the video tape arrived, a video of Robb being put up against a wall and shot.

"Sansa," Margie says, her hand warm and shaking in Sansa's, "will it take long? This exchange thing?"

Sansa hasn't a clue, to be honest - she knows that the exchange should be simple, a neat swap of the massive case of cash and a written guarantee that the Greyjoys are now exempt from all port duties for Willas, in whatever condition they've left him in since the last video file arrived.

He'd looked good, considering they'd had him for seven hours.

"It shouldn't do," she promises. "Should be over nice and quick."

For the sake of the man who'd giggled in hysterics over whiskey and ginger after spending three quarters of a million pounds on hideously ugly artwork, more than for the put-together, perfectly groomed antiquities dealer in the picture on Mace's desk, Sansa hopes it's quick.

* * *

They've put him in a wheelchair, which is annoying - he's always hated being in a wheelchair, even when he should be, because it makes him feel helpless - but at least he's not tied to a chair any more. The Greyjoys themselves are staying well back, of course, because they're not going to risk getting caught in the crossfire.

Willas is a little surprised that Asha didn't come. He half thought she might, just for the fun of it - but he wouldn't be surprised if Dad's gotten the police to put snipers on the roofs on the far side of the bridge, and he wouldn't be surprised if the Greyjoys know that.

Which leaves him here, with two men he knows by reputation, but who do not live up to that reputation _at all._

Especially not Tristifer Botley, Asha Greyjoy's third. Qarl the Maid, her second, is at least as big as everyone says he is, but he's also got the most pathetic excuse for facial hair Willas has ever seen, and that makes him much less intimidating.

"Sorry," Tristifer mumbles when the wheelchair jumps over a bump in the road, jarring Willas' leg. It's so painful already, now that the anaesthetic is wearing off, that he barely noticed it. "Didn't mean to do that."

Willas has a horrible feeling that the reason Qarl the Maid is one of his escorts is that Qarl, as Asha's second, is rumoured to do most of her killing for her. Once the ransom demands are met, what reason is there to keep Willas alive?

Dad is on the other side of the bridge, with Mum and Pop, and what looks like half of the police force. He can't make out much more than that, since they smashed his glasses, but he hopes to any god that might be listening that they didn't bring Aster. The very last thing he wants is for Aster to see him die, and he's fairly sure that he'll die on this bridge.

* * *

Sansa still isn't sure why she's here, but she'd tried to bow out and Margie had held so tight to her hand that her knuckles had popped.

They're crammed into a little van, a police van, watching the action on the bridge through the traffic cams - Aster is tucked up in Loras' lap, clinging tight to his jumper, and Garlan is leaning over his and Margie's chairs. They all look exactly alike, in the flickering blue-white light, and Sansa stays pressed back against the wall with Renly and Leonette, watching the screens through the gaps between the Tyrell siblings.

"He hates being in a wheelchair," Renly says quietly, which surprises Sansa so much she looks up at him, which makes him smile. "Will and me were at school together - that's how I met Loras. We know one another _far _too well, considering we're in-laws."

Sansa just about manages a smile at that - Renly's been marvellous all through this, bright and cheerful and terrifyingly optimistic, and she's fairly sure that all three Tyrell siblings who are present would have cracked up without him.

"Alright," Garlan says, all tension and white knuckles, "here we go."

Mace and one of the cops are walking over the bridge, towards Willas in his wheelchair and the two goons pushing him, and Sansa, she can't, she can't deal with this, she can't watch, she _knows_ that this is going to end badly, because as they were wheeling Willas towards the middle of the bridge all she could see was Robb being pushed into frame before they put a gun to his temple and blew half his head out against the whitewashed wall behind him-

She throws up on the footpath along the river, close to the junction of the street and the bridge, close enough that she can _see. _

Oh, _no._ The very last thing she wants is to be able to see. She can't bear to see another family torn apart the way hers was by Robb's death. She can't do this. She _won't._

* * *

"So what's the plan, once you have the ransom?" Willas says, dizzy with pain. "Toss me over the bridge? I won't be able to swim, not with all the drugs in my system, and definitely not with this leg. Or shoot me? It's one or the other, since I'll be able to identify all of the people who participated in my kidnap and torture, and the Greyjoys don't like loose ends."

"Have you a preference?" Qarl asks, sounding genuinely curious. "Most people prefer not to know."

"Shooting would be quicker," he says thoughtfully, "but, since I assume that the reason the traffic cameras are following our movement is so someone can watch it, presumably including my daughter, I think I'd rather you throw me off the bridge - that way Aster won't have to see me die a violent death."

"How very thoughtful," Qarl says in obvious surprise. "Drowning will be a lot more traumatic for _you, _you know."

"I know. But I'll be dead, so what difference will that make?"

Dad's been crying, Willas can see it in how red his face is between his eyes and his beard, and he's puling a massive suitcase in one hand (how much is the life of a thirty-nine year old antiquities dealer worth?) and a manilla envelope in the other. There's a gun pressed to Willas' nape, cold and hard, and he just hopes that Garlan - because it will be Garlan, he knows his brothers and sister as well as he knows himself and it _will _be Garlan who thinks to do it - covers Aster's eyes when Qarl pulls the trigger.

"You look like shit, son," Dad says, voice gruff and thick with tears, and Willas is fairly sure he's smiling, too. "Here's your ransom, now-"

* * *

It all happens so quickly.

One minute, Sansa is leaning over the railing, trying not to be sick, trying not to watch, and the next the big blonde one is throwing Willas - wheelchair and all - over the side of the bridge.

She hears gunshots as she climbs onto the ornate concrete railing, and more as she swandives into the river below. She used to do this from the bridge over the Tumblestone, back when she was a kid and they used to visit Granddad at Riverrun, and the current here isn't as quick so she makes good time, even though she's swimming against it.

There's noise - so much noise - coming from the bridge, and she can just about hear it over the clap of the water against her ears as she cuts through the waves towards Willas.

He landed headfirst, and he's face-down, unconscious, by the time she reaches him. There's a splash somewhere off to her left, presumably someone else diving in to help, but she has Willas on his back and above water before they get to her, and then to the nearest steps - she's half a Tully, after all, half a fish, _and she will not let someone else's family be torn apart like this._

* * *

_Willas doesn't quite wake up. He feels like he's having a conversation in sign language, like he has to think about what every word and gesture and sign and flash of light means._

_First, a sharp spike of pain. Then throbbing pain in his chest, and- fruity lip balm, maybe? And a_ push_ down into his chest that jars him enough that he starts to cough. The foul taste of river water, burning in his chest, burning in his throat, slimed in his mouth. Bright, unfocused light - the sky? - and a pain in his chest like he's been kicked in the ribs. The impact with the water, or CPR? Or both?_

_He can hear Garlan's voice, and Dad's, both desperate and terrified, but it's neither of them that rolls him onto his side, and he doesn't think it's either of them that pulls something so tight around his bad leg that even given the pain he's already feeling, it hurts._

_Something fogs, then, and when he comes to, _Aster is there.

* * *

Sansa has thrown up twice - the river water was _foul, _even if she hadn't noticed it at the time, and the doctors want to keep her in for observation, just in case she picked up some sort of infection.

What "observation" has amounted to so far has been sitting in a big waiting room near the private rooms, surrounded by Tyrells and Hightowers and a few Martells, and spending an hour on the phone with Mum, who'd seen her in the river on the news and nearly lost her mind, apparently.

What "observation" also means is that Sansa is in prime position to watch Aster Martell-Tyrell scream a terrible, wounded, wordless cry every time someone tries to take her away from her father, once he's been brought up from theatre. Aster just sits there in the gap where her father's left leg was, her own legs tucked up and her chin resting on her knees. She slaps away everyone's hands except for her grandfather's, and Mace just sits behind her and strokes her hair, which is still patchily black from the ink Sansa and Smalljon rubbed into it earlier.

"You should be in bed," Loras says to her, nudging his hip against her shoulder. "The doctors said-"

"I'm not showing any sign of infection," she says, swatting him away and wrapping her arm back around Margaery's shoulders. "I'm fine, honestly."

Mace starts shouting for the family to come in, and they all run - Sansa can see Aster sprawled on top of Willas, and Doc Alerie is crying in Mace's arms, and Sansa feels...

She feels so jealous she could _spit, _but when Loras turns and smiles and beckons her in, she smiles back, and lets Renly guide her to her feet and into the already overcrowded room.

Willas looks like shit. His bad leg is now his missing leg, gone from the middle of his thigh down, and his hands are almost entirely splinted and bandaged, and he's got one of those nasal splint things and she knows too much about all of this and wishes she didn't and oh no no she cannot do this make it stop-

"Sansa," he says, "thank you. For Aster. And for me."

And for a moment, she isn't seeing Robb and Dad and Bran lying there on a morgue table or in a coma ward, it's just Willas, who spilled ginger ale on her purse and panicked until he realised it was only cheap faux leather so it'd do no harm, and who enthused over the virtues of the kids' art in the gallery as no one else had except her.

"It was nothing," she says, and something tense in her belly loosens and she is so, so thankful for the familiar smell of Smalljon's terrible aftershave when he catches her as she faints.

* * *

Willas can't speak to Aster, he can't hold a pen, he can't use a pair of crutches or a wheelchair, he can't even hold a damn spoon to eat his own ice cream, so he waits a week until the dislocated fingers on his left hand heal up enough that he can use the hand again, leaving him at least able to fingerspell to Az, before asking Margie for Sansa Stark's number.

"I want to thank her properly," he says defensively, when Margie gives him a Look. Azzie, sitting curled up under his arm, starts to laugh when Margie tells her what he's said, and he pokes her in the tummy as a reprimand, pouting at her until she leans up and kisses his cheek._  
_

She doesn't stop giggling, of course, but after the terrifying few hours he spent believing that the Greyjoys had her, Aster can laugh at him all she wants.

Sansa comes in during evening visiting hours, with a long silk scarf the same shade of blue as her eyes hanging untied over her dark navy swing coat. She looks tired, as if she has a flu, but otherwise good. Beautiful, even, but he's already had two appointments with a therapist who warned him not to convince himself he's in love with Sansa just because she saved his life.

"Hi," she says, and he doesn't think he's convinced himself he's in love with her, but he would like to get to know her - between jumping into a river to save him, and that one drunken kind-of-date last year after the gala, and her being such a good friend to Margie, and to Loras, and Az being so fond of her, well, he thinks he'd _really _like to get to know her. "I got your text."

"Not up for phone calls yet," he tells her, smiling and feeling more than a little shy. She looks so good, after all, and he's sitting here with nothing more than boxers, blankets, and bandages keeping him decent. "There's something wrong with one of my ears, apparently - something to do with the impact with the water. I was a little drugged out of my head at the time."

She smiles at that, and takes the chair beside his bed, and tugs her scarf off. It makes her hair spill out from her collar, bright and lovely, and Willas fuzzily remembers seeing that bright red against the bright sky after he was pulled out of the water.

"I don't really know how to repay you," he says, using his good hand to push himself a bit more upright, wishing he'd done more of those crunches Loras was always advising him about because his stomach was not something he wanted to show off. "I- You saved my daughter's life. And mine. But _Aster's._"

Sansa's next smile is slow and warm, and _fond._ Willas knows Aster is easy to love, but he's her dad, so of _course_ he finds her easy to love. It's good to see that it's something that extends outside the family, though.

"She's a wonderful girl," Sansa says, and yes, Willas really does want to get to know her, he wants to know _everyone _who loves his daughter, so he can share how much he loves her with the whole world.

* * *

_"Daddy is getting dressed," _Aster tells her, guiding her into the big sitting room to the left of the front door. It's got a huge, beautiful bay window that looks out over the green in the middle of the square, and a baby grand piano in some rich, deep wood that looks almost like mahogany but not quite. _"He was going to wear something ugly but I made him change."_

Aster's got a bandage over one ear - according to Margie, Az decided to she wanted cochlear implants in the wake of the Incident, because she wanted to feel more independent, and didn't want to left behind if no one remembered to sign for her. She's getting them done one at a time, to see if the first one will help before subjecting her to the healing process in both ears.

_"How's the implant?"_ she asks, and Azzie smiles hugely, her brand new braces glinting in the light.

_"It's weird,"_ she admits. _"But yesterday night Daddy was listening to music and I think I heard something."_

The lights flick off and on, and Sansa and Aster both turn to where Willas is standing in the door, smiling and leaning on an ornate rosewood cane.

"Hi," he says, and then he sets his cane against the doorframe to sign at Aster. _"Olwyn is setting up her homework in the downstairs study, so you're to spend tonight in the solarium, okay?"_

_"But-"_

_"No buts,"_ he warns her, _"solarium, unless Olwyn comes with you into the kitchen, and bed by ten, okay?"_

Aster rolls her eyes, but she's smiling, and she leans up on her tip-toes to kiss Willas on the cheek.

"So," he says, once they're out the door and making their way to the waiting taxi. "I hope you like Pentoshi cuisine, because a new restaurant opened on the Maze that I've been _dying _to try..."


End file.
